Description
Book SynopsisKikuji has been invited to a tea ceremony by a mistress of his dead father. He is shocked to find there the mistress''s rival and successor, Mrs. Ota, and that the ceremony has been awkwardly arranged for him to meet his potential future bride. But he is most shocked to be drawn into a relationship with Mrs. Ota - a relationship that will bring only suffering and destruction to all of them.
Thousand Cranes reflects the tea ceremony''s poetic precision with understated, lyrical style and beautiful prose.
Trade ReviewA literary habitat like no other . . . quietly devastating fiction. . . . Behind a lyrical and understated surface, chaotic passions pulse * The Independent (London) *
Thousand Cranes has the qualities of the best Japanese writing: a stunning economy, delicacy of feeling, and a painter's sensitivity to the visible world * The Atlantic *
A novel of exquisite artistry . . . rich suggestibility . . . and a story that is human, vivid and moving * New York Herald Tribune *
Kawabata is a poet of the gentlest shades, of the evanescent, the imperceptible. This is a tragedy in soft focus, but its passions are fierce * Commonweal *
